Problem is the story

Rating: 6/10 (12 July 2013)

First of all, I kept a high expectation on this movie. Every time I saw the trailers/behind-the-scene during the past couple months I was hoping July 12 would come earlier.
Now let's talk about the pros. The visual effects are absolutely first- class, as well as the sound mixing. I also enjoy the cool customs (armor/helmet) of the movie. Every guy dreams arming with it and fighting against giant monsters! Fighting scenes are also great.
Enough good words. I want to talk about what makes me uncomfortable with this movie. Warnings again: spoilers.
The story line starts in a really good way. Raleigh (Charlie) lost his brother in a fight and also lost his confidence to be a pilot. I was hoping that the story will tell how he overcomes this history after spending 5 years constructing, and it does - until five seconds later when his new co-pilot, Mako (Rinko), has more fear to overcome. Then it spent another 10 minutes addressing her problems and forgot to mention how Raleigh overcame his for the rest of the movie.
Later it turns to talk about Stacker(Idris)'s problems and drives our attentions to a brand-new side of the story. What comes between the main storyline is Gottlieb-Newton bromance. However, it addresses the bromance for 5 minutes before returning to the ambiguous relationship between Raleigh and Mako and Stacker's love, care and encouragements to Mako. Other elements, such as Ron's character, father-son relations and meaningless fights (not the giant type), further drive audience's attention away.
I felt extremely discouraging to form a high anticipation about how the story will flow from the plots, but then found out that the director did stress it, but just for a couple minutes before turning to other aspects. Later I was so good at predicting the story, telling myself that well, anyway, the story will just spend another 5 minutes on this or that. The movie has a lot to offer other than visual effects, but it is over-ambitious, trying to include as many elements as possible.
The way the story starts seems to indicate that it wants to talk about Raleigh, but instead it goes more about Stacker. In-between is Miko, which adds to confusions about how she eventually pilots well.
If you think summer blockbusters like this, Star Trek or Iron Man 3, do not even need a storyline, you will absolutely disagree with me. I am not saying that it has to have a wonderful or heart-breaking storyline as drama does, which is also beyond my expectation. What I am saying is that, you give a hint about how the story will go, and you go for it and go deep enough for it. You have a lot to tell, which is great, but focus on those that form the characters. IMAXize and 3Dize the characters you want to create.
North Carolina, U.S.